Just picked up the Strat guide for Wow

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This thing is HUGE! It's 429 pages, full color, small print and very large. Well worth it. My EB manager was nervous selling it, but he didn't let have a street date for the guide as the game did, so he let me get it when I made sure he knew I wasn't leaving without it!

Lucky Slambie....they hav eit at my local GameStop, but they just told me (in person) that they won''t release the Strategy Guide till the 23rd...I tried to check to see that my CE was in fact reserved, but the store manager had pulled all the reserve orders from the front desk in order to organize them before Tuesday.

I looked at the guide in Best Buy the other night. I love the PA cartoons, and the fact that Gabe & Tycho still make liberal use of the F-bomb, even in their ""corporate"" work. Although I''m not sure I understand the publisher''s decision to black out the f-word, but not so black so you can''t read it, just kind of like it is highlighted in grey highlighter. What''s the f***ing point?

"You know, hubbinsd, as much as I don't want to go into library science, I still think you're pretty sexy." -Wordsmythe

(Edit: Since Friday,) I''ve been hounding all 4 of my local EB/GameStop stores looking for the Limited Edition Strategy Guide. Anyway, to cut to the chase, I was expecting a nice 3-ring binder with the strategy guide pages inside... nope.

Here''s what the description from the link says:

This Limited Edition product includes:

* The Official Strategy Guide...

* One of two Collector''s Edition faction-specific binders.

...and that''s exactly what it has. The regular paperback-bound strategy guide shrink-wrapped with a binder. Grr... and to think I could have been perusing this thing all weekend. Needless to say, they did not get my extra five bucks. I''ve got plenty of 3-ring binders here already, thank you very much.

I just picked up the one and only copy of the limited edition strat guide at my local Gamestop, and to me, the $5 for the binder was well worth it. Yeah I have lots of binders, but this one is cool looking. And it''s friggin $5.

I should mention, though, that, to the best of my interpretation (of the back page of the strategy guide), you don''t qualify for the updates unless you 1) buy the premium edition or 2) upgrade your membership on bradygames.com.

Edit: Strekos, have you registered? Can you tell us what is available for download?

I went by EB to check it out tonite and it is well done. However it''s nothing that you can''t get on the Internet. I don''t really care about armor and item descriptions and things like that so it''s not for me. And since WOW has automap its not worth it for the maps either. The only thing I would use it for is the creature locations but that kind of ruins the surprise.

Edit to contribute something: I really want to like the LE guide. I want strat guide publishers to realize that, in publishing a guide for such a rapidly, constantly evolving gametype, the guide, too, needs to evolve. This is a good first step, but what I was conceiving was a 3-ring-bound, pre-holepunched version of the guide, with which I would receive a key that I could then use to download updated PDFs for printing, punching, and placing in the guide. Close but not quite.

I want to support this sort of thinking in the same way that I (idealistically) want to support Valve/Steam and Stardock(the GalCiv/PoliticalMachine guys, right?), but it''s difficult to do when it''s ""close, but not quite"" in relation to my hopes and dreams of a perfect world.

Steam: duckilama Battletag: DuckiLama#1806T.Rex is more impressive than a cockroach, but that doesn't mean it aged better. - CheezePavillion

I''m genuinely curious if the binder codes are unique. Just so know one thinks I''m trying to receive ill-gotten gains, instead of telling me, could two people who both have the binder version compare notes and tell us if the numbers are unique? The form on the page simply labeled it an ISBN...

Ok two steps in the process - plug in your ISBN number and then it takes you to a page where you plug in the number which is on the back of the binder. It then takes you to a page where you can download new material... Checked out the new material - the only thing in there was quests broken down by class type and then several maps with ""icon packages"" which they say will ""help"" you make new maps... Still for 5 dollars and if they actually do update it - it might be worth it - I have mine and I like it... I ended up with a Horde binder....

As a special bonus to our binder customers we decided to give you these regions maps, but on a clean slate. Download these six region maps, grab a special region icon set and your are off to creating your own maps!

I wasn''t going to but I am going to buy this when it arrives at the local EB this week (likely tomorrow). I get 20% off having bought WoW (not sure if its because I bought the CE or if all WoW versions get the discount). Why the heck not.

The thing I am most disappointed with the LE version, is the guide. I really thought they would include a prepunched version of the strategy guide with the binder. Plus, I dont think you can punch holes in the guide yourself without punching thru the text.

BTW, in regards to the in game pictures in the guide. Does WoW look anywhere near as good on you guys'' computers as it does in the strategy guide pictures?

Reason I am asking is my system is fairly old (AMD 1700+, 512 RAM, GeForce 3 w/64 megs), and while it runs WoW pretty well, it certainly doesnt look anything like those pictures.

I was just wondering if those pictures were captured on some bleeding edge system, photoshopped to hell & back, or were actually captured on a mid-range system (by todays standards).

Basically I''m just trying to get an idea of how much more longer I can talk myself out of upgrading, or buying a new system.

(This should probably be moved to the MMORPG forum. I can''t do that, though, and didn''t want to start a new thread.)

So I looked more closely into the online updates, and I''m a bit miffed.

The paladin guide in the strategy guide is pre-update. Very, very wrong. So, I naturally assumed they''d have an update online. I mean, isn''t that why I paid extra money?

Well, as much as I can see, I can''t find an update. I see quest guides, and maps, and some guides to extras, but that''s it. I''m quite disappointed.

It''s not so much that I''m out $5. It''s that I''m out $30. Because I honestly wouldn''t have bought ANY strategy guide if there wasn''t this one.

Now it''s probably that it''s just so new, but seriously - the game is new, sure, but the changes to the Paladin class have been in effect since the second stess test. At LEAST 3 weeks, if not longer. Am I really going to have to wait a month or more for updates? Doesn''t really seem worth it to me.